


The lasagna may be a metaphor for something

by boarsnsmores



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Swan Queen - Freeform, Swan-Mills Family, idk what i'm doing send help, sort of, the unsexiest fill for this prompt ever, with hints of sq
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 17:38:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5752216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boarsnsmores/pseuds/boarsnsmores
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma breaks up with Stouffer's lasagna by having an affair with Regina's lasagna. It's messy business.</p><p>Swan Queen Week Day 1 - Lust</p>
            </blockquote>





	The lasagna may be a metaphor for something

**Author's Note:**

> In my defense, there was exactly 0 chance of me successfully writing anything remotely sexy and Google also defined lust as "a passionate desire for something." I'm only half-sorry for writing this.

It starts when she has Henry for the weekend, in the early days of her and Regina navigating co-parenting like they're divorced with a kid between them. Which, Emma doesn't describe them as such out loud, but it's not like there's a parenting book out there called "What To Do When Your Other Co-Parent was the Evil Queen and You Both Live in a Displaced Land of Fairy Tale Characters" so she'll settle for a questionably obtained pdf of "Joint Custody with a Jerk: Raising a Child with an Uncooperative Ex- A Hands-on, Practical Guide to Communicating with a Difficult Ex-Spouse." She probably should have read the reviews on Amazon and winged it instead - this book is absolutely useless.

Henry's taken out a tupperware and found his way to her microwave by the time she stops internally frowning at the author's idea of communicating (Fireballs? How do you communicate with fireballs? You don't. Regina's a jerk.).

“Mom gave it to me,” he tells her as he pushes the worn _2_ and watches the plate turn. “She said something about proper nutrition and how ‘Pop Tarts aren’t a food group, despite Ms. Swan’s alarming frequency of consumption’” he says in his best Regina voice which is actually really good. She’s reminded that he’s as much Regina’s kid as he is her’s and that might be some guilt she’s feeling but she’s going to go with hunger.

“Hey, you get perfectly fine nutrition here,” she defends, “Lots of protein.” She pokes him in the side as the microwave dings cheerfully. He edges over to let her grab some forks in the cabinet next to them, “I’ll let Mom know your objections to her conclusions and leave out the part where literally the only thing you can make are eggs.”

“And toast, don’t forget toast. Look at all that fiber you get too. Make sure you tell her that.” she adds, handing him a fork and grabbing the tupperware out of the microwave. They settle on the kitchen counter and Emma stabs her fork into the lasagna, “And, and - three square meals a day! I’m practically parent of the-oh my god.”

It's cocaine. Emma's sure of it. There can be no other reason why this lasagna tastes so damn good. Regina puts cocaine in her lasagna.

Henry keeps eating like the lasagna is a normal, daily occurrence (which, she supposes, it probably is) and not something that came out of Julia Child’s kitchen. He does, however, raise an eyebrow at her (and god does he look like Regina in this moment) when she stops talking, “What’ s wrong, Emma?”

“Henry. Henry, child of my loins and light of my life.”

He looks legitimately worried now.

She waves a twenty from her wallet in his face, “I’ll give you this twenty right now for the rest of this lasagna.”

“Oh my god, Emma.” He rolls his eyes and takes the proffered twenty, “it’s just lasagna.”

“Kid, the Stouffer’s frozen lasagna in my freezer is ‘just lasagna’. Which we can’t eat anymore because there’s no coming back from this. God, can I marry this lasagna? I’d marry Regina for this lasagna, but there are only so many fireball ‘accidents’ I can go through before I’m ‘accidentally murdered’.”

“Please don’t marry my mom for lasagna.”

* * *

Henry comes back the next week with a larger tupperware filled with lasagna, “I told her it was really good and asked her if she could make more. I may have also mentioned your poor cooking skills to sell it.”

“Did you sell me out for lasagna, kid?”

He puts on his most serious face, his hands on her shoulders, and gives her what he must think is a gaze of weary acceptance. He’s still shorter than her so the effect’s kind of lost, “Emma, I took the fall for your weird lasagna addiction. If anything, you should be thanking me for enabling you.”

She’d like to point out that the truth in that statement doesn’t negate the truth of her accusation, but he’s already microwaving the lasagna and she’s far more interested in that so she just shrugs, “And that’s why you’re my favorite kid.”

“I’m your only kid.”

* * *

Emma refuses to believe that you can get addicted to lasagna, but her wallet’s fifty bucks lighter so it’s a halfhearted thought.

“Emma, while I’m personally happy to accept your bribe money, I think Mom would agree when I tell you that you may have a problem. I just want to let you know that I’m here for you, Emma, when you’re ready to accept your problem and the help needed to overcome it.”

She’s already reaching for the now-regular tupperware in his hands, “I paid for top-secret recipe information, not sass stolen from the internet. Did you get it?” 

(She’d tried to weasel the secret out of Regina last week by thanking her for the food and complimenting it. Regina just raised an eyebrow and made a scathing remark about low bars which then devolved into judgement about life decisions. At least there weren’t any fireballs this time. Also Regina may have been kidding; Emma’s not yet sure if she’s being optimistic or just dumb.)

He does that Regina eye-roll, “Yea. I think. We made it on my half-day. Did you get the ingredients I texted you?”

Emma’s had them since Henry texted her two days ago, “Bought ‘em today, kid.”

* * *

She’ll tell them it was a lasagna-induced fever dream that made her think they could cook Regina’s lasagna. By the time they reached the end, they’d:

  * spilled whatever flour didn’t make it onto the flour mound onto the ground
  * done such a shoddy job at the flour mound that the eggs ran out of it and onto the ground - why does Regina make her own lasagna noodles? Why can’t she get them from the grocery store like a normal person?
  * added too much egg because how were you supposed to get the yolk out without the whites?
  * set the pan on fire
  * permanently blackened and ruined Emma’s one good pan - no amount of scrubbing was fixing that
  * ripped out the smoke alarm (“Emma, I can’t keep waving this folder.”)
  * aimed improperly and spilled the meat half onto the counter (“It’s still good, right? It’s a clean enough counter!”)
  * forgotten the timer and then the lasagna in the oven during a particularly brutal game of Mario Party
  * been chastised by the Storybrooke Fire Department for the fire scare and smoke detector non-compliance



Emma just wants to shower and go to sleep, but then a Mercedes pulls up (‘Pulls up’ is a gentle way of saying ‘Regina screeches in, nearly taking out a mailbox in the turnabout’. Emma briefly wonders if learning how to drive from a curse disqualifies one’s driver’s license.) because apparently Regina knows everything. Regina rushes to Henry first, patting him down and radiating enough concern that Emma can feel it from here. She hugs him and Emma can’t see Henry talking or what he’s saying (please not the lasagna), but Regina’s eyebrows get higher and higher until they slam back down in anger. When she storms over, Emma just sighs.

“Look, Regina-”

“What were you thinking, Ms. Swan? I understand that you may have a death wish, but my son was there and he could have been seriously hurt and while he’s in your care I expect you to quell whatever idiotic predilections you may have and instead ensure not only his safety, but that he doesn’t return home _well-done!”_ Regina punctuates each part of her run-on sentence with a forceful jab at Emma.

If looks could kill, Emma thinks, she’d be dead twice over with at least an extra death to spare. She’s going to keep going if Emma doesn’t stop her right now, “Okay, first of all, our son. Secondly, this is his home too and it was an accident and no one was hurt so just chill-”

“Don’t tell me to ‘just chill’!” Regina snaps back, eyes really striking even though they’re furious and all that fury is directed at her right now, “What were you even doing?”

Emma trying to think of a way to avoid explaining her awkward lust for Regina’s lasagna when the Fire Chief walks up, “Well, I think we can safely say your lasagna’s ruined. But the apartment’s still good and you’re cleared to re-enter. Maybe stick to frozen meals next time? I saw a Stouffer’s lasagna in your freezer.”

Maybe the earth will swallow her and her embarrassment up now. This is Storybrooke - weirder things have happened. Regina just stares at her with...well, she’s still angry, but Emma’s going to be an optimist and say that there’s fondness and a healthy portion of _you idiot_ mixed in too. Emma can live with that.

Regina turns away before Emma can explain about ingesting the cocaine in the lasagna and her official stance against drugs, heading back to Henry. She watches as Regina says something and Henry shakes his head vehemently, to which Regina sighs, hugs him, and heads back to her car (but not before glaring angrily at Emma again. But no fireballs! Emma thinks she needs to get over this instinctive worry about the fireballs but Regina pulls them out whenever she can so who can really blame her for worrying?).

Henry walks up to her. “Kid,” she tells him, “I might have a problem.”

“Accepting that you have a problem is the first step.” he responds solemnly.

“Your mother’s never going to make me lasagna again, is she?”

* * *

Emma thinks that’s the end of her lasagna affair. They’ll find her in a corner sweating profusely and shaking from its withdrawal. Henry calls her melodramatic and refuses to take that as a reason to share his lasagna. “Mom says she’ll know,” he says, “and then neither of us will get lasagna and that’s not a risk I’m willing to take.” Emma knows Henry knows full well that Regina’d never deny him anything; he’s just being a prick. Still, it means no more lasagna and Emma will just have to move forward in her new, empty, Regina’s lasagna-less life. The Stouffer’s lasagna mocks her from its shelf in the freezer and she looks at it mournfully.

She’s microwaving the Stouffer’s lasagna when Regina walks in. “You know, Ms. Swan, I haven’t yet told you off for using Henry as a pawn in your efforts to procure my lasagna.”

Emma just gapes, “You knew?”

“Of course I knew” Regina responds, “Neither you nor Henry are very subtle.” She’s placed two tupperware containers on Emma’s desk and Emma’d recognize those anywhere. “Is one...for me?” she asks.

“Well, what kind of mayor would I be if I let our sole sheriff be incapacitated by lasagna withdrawal when I had the power to keep Storybrooke safe?” Regina frowns at the Stouffer’s lasagna already in the microwave and Emma hastily shoves it back into the office fridge.

“Doing your civic duty, huh?” Emma asks, smile on her face.

“That, and Henry mentioned some kind of marriage proposal? Really, Emma, I expect to be wooed before I’m proposed to.” Regina hands Emma one of the tupperware containers. “Henry needs to learn to keep his mouth shut” Emma groans out, both from having Regina know just how deeply in love Emma is with her lasagna but also from the lasagna she’s currently shoveling into her mouth with little propriety. Absence makes the heart grow fond and all that.

It hits her a little late, distracted by the lasagna as she is, “Wait, was that an invitation?” She glances up from her lasagna to watch Regina eat hers (and how does someone look that classy eating reheated lasagna out of a tupperware with a plastic fork? How???) casually. Too casually.

“Perhaps,” Regina begrudgingly allows, having been caught out.

Emma just smiles and thinks this could be the start of something beautiful. A filled with home, family, lasagna, and distinct lack of fireballs aimed at her face kind of something.

**Author's Note:**

> Still in my early forays into fanfic. You should let me know what I did horrifically wrong. I'm here and on [tumblr](http://boarsnsmores.tumblr.com/).


End file.
